A meteor streaked through the skies above Russia's Urals region Friday morning, before exploding with a flash and boom that shattered glass in buildings and left about 1,000 people hurt, state media said.

The number of injured has continued to rise through the day as new reports come in from across a swath of central Russia.

As of late afternoon local time, the Interior Ministry said about 1,000 people had been hurt, including more than 200 children, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency said.

Most of those hurt are in the Chelyabinsk region, the news agency said. The vast majority of injuries are not thought to be serious.

The videos I have seen are fascinating. If anyone sees any HD/cinema quality videos, please post references. A flood of cell-phone shots are appearing that are quite remarkable, but, it might be the case that someone had a professional quality camera pointed in the right direction.

The shockwave must have been pretty strong to collapse that factory wall. Not exactly Tunguska, but, scary all the same.

At this point I think it more accurate to call it an unconfirmed meteorite.... I've seen a photo of hole in ice from the area that they believe as caused by a piece reaching the earth.

This site has some good video links ... and the photo I was talking about above ...

The 2nd video is the "short version" of what happened. Further down - #14 as I write this - there is a colour video of the inside of an office at the time.

The 4th video is a short video that shows how bright and how fast that sucker was.

If you only have a few minutes, watch those 3 clips to get a really good feeling of what happened.

__________________My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. - Jack Layton

"a meteor that survives its passage through the earth's atmosphere such that part of it strikes the ground. More than 90 percent of meteorites are of rock, while the remainder consist wholly or partly of iron and nickel."

Meteor/Meteorite is nicely explained above. It's still 'unconfirmed' until they have the physical evidence. So, the hole in the ice was likely caused by a piece hitting the ground (according to one report I read) ... but it is unconfirmed until they can locate the actual piece of rock or can show that the hole in the ice was not caused by something more mundane.

UPDATE: The BBC is reporting that the Russian military have located a crater on the shores of a lake, plus it seems some other impact sites. So it is seeming that this will be confirmed as a meteorite. Then they can analyze the remains and find something out that is cool.

---

Spare some thoughts for the people of the region too. It is a bad time of year to lose the windows in your home. There are going to be a lot of cold people tonight. At least the power wasn't knocked out, so they will have some heat.

__________________My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. - Jack Layton

At this point I think it more accurate to call it an unconfirmed meteorite.... I've seen a photo of hole in ice from the area that they believe as caused by a piece reaching the earth.

This site has some good video links ... and the photo I was talking about above ...

The 2nd video is the "short version" of what happened. Further down - #14 as I write this - there is a colour video of the inside of an office at the time.

The 4th video is a short video that shows how bright and how fast that sucker was.

If you only have a few minutes, watch those 3 clips to get a really good feeling of what happened.

Great find!

I'm awestruck by that. Completely awestruck. I have a friend who lives in Chelyabinsk that I'm trying to get hold of, but still, for what happened in those videos to be 300km away, that is just amazing and shocking.

One thing I noticed and am astonished about is how long it took for the shockwaves to reach the ground after it flew by. Certainly much longer than when a fighter jet flies by at much lower altitude.

I think I read somewhere, it about 35 miles above the ground - though someone correct me if I'm wrong. But, rule of thumb is that sound travels one mile in 5 seconds.... so if it was 35 miles up, figure about 7 seconds. More or less since the speed of sound is different at various altitudes... but close enough for an estimate.

That sucker was big enough a satellite picked up the vapour trail... Link The big image I think is better, you can see the cloud trail on the horizon.

__________________My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. - Jack Layton

Edit: Out of curiosity, I looked up the location of the Ural Mountains in relation to the meteor strike in Tunguska. On a global scale, they're practically side by side, separated by roughly 1200 miles.

... I looked up the location of the Ural Mountains in relation to the meteor strike in Tunguska. On a global scale, they're practically side by side, separated by roughly 1200 miles...

I know where I don't want to be another century... there is something weird about that spot.....

Actually... I wonder where today's asteroid would have hit had it hit the Earth... would Urals have been an option?

__________________My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. - Jack Layton

I know where I don't want to be another century... there is something weird about that spot.....

I dunno if it's weird on incredibly unlucky. Meteor strikes that create a noticeable effect at ground level happen on Earth practically once every thousand years. Yet poor old central Russia gets smacked by two of them within a 105 years time span. The odds of that happening are probably some massive number no one can pronounce that starts with a 2 and has 56 zeroes behind it to one.

Though now it's probably one of the safest places on Earth. I mean what are the chances of it happening a third time?

Quote:

Actually... I wonder where today's asteroid would have hit had it hit the Earth... would Urals have been an option?

I would assume it would depend on a ton of factors. The angle changing might put it on the Earth, the speed changing might put it on the Earth since the Earth would be in a different location, etc.

Oh, I know...but it would be freaky if the least number of changes put it on the Urals, eh?

__________________My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. - Jack Layton

Oh, I know...but it would be freaky if the least number of changes put it on the Urals, eh?

Maybe. I'm sure you could change it to put it in the Ural's. But to be honest it wouldn't be that freaky. It'd be quite like people going "Hey if you add all these random numbers up it makes 9/11!" Coincidence?!

Maybe. I'm sure you could change it to put it in the Ural's. But to be honest it wouldn't be that freaky. It'd be quite like people going "Hey if you add all these random numbers up it makes 9/11!" Coincidence?!

You're not working with me...

But you know, it is kinda freaky that 9/11 is the same as the emergency number you call in North America, eh?

Seriously...it is an amazing coincidence that this meteorite - and the one that exploded over Siberia in 1908 are relatively close. Excluding all of those meteorites that we never notice because they are over the oceans or over uninhabited areas, the coincidence of last two meteorites of consequence being that close is worth noting. Plus, the coincidence of the Russia meteorite and the asteroid that shaved by the earth today is also worth noting.

__________________My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. - Jack Layton

But you know, it is kinda freaky that 9/11 is the same as the emergency number you call in North America, eh?

...I've been screaming about this for years. It's all about 7 and 911, man.

Also FEMA.

Quote:

Seriously...it is an amazing coincidence that this meteorite - and the one that exploded over Siberia in 1908 are relatively close. Excluding all of those meteorites that we never notice because they are over the oceans or over uninhabited areas, the coincidence of last two meteorites of consequence being that close is worth noting. Plus, the coincidence of the Russia meteorite and the asteroid that shaved by the earth today is also worth noting.

Actually, we're wrong and he's right. If you check out the link Panda posted to the Today Show (which I initially missed), and read up on it a little more, you'll see that meteor bursts like this one are fairly frequent, happening once every 5-10 years or so. The only reason we're hearing so much about this one particular is because it happened to burst over a populated area.

It being relatively near Tunguska apparently doesn't mean anything except...hell, I dunno...that Russia seems to have worse luck with meteors than most.